The present invention relates to a head structure for rotatably supporting shafts and the like.
As is known, in many industrial fields it is necessary to provide for the rotary support of shafts with the possibility of easily removing the shaft from its support. In particular, the paper-making industry and similar industries use supporting shafts for paper rolls, which are normally very heavy and large.
Said rolls must be rotated at very high speeds, so that it is absolutely necessary to have a perfect centering of the shaft with respect to the rotation axis, in order to avoid dangerous vibrations or imbalances.
In order to support the shaft, current solutions use supporting heads, to which the shaft is connected, which are mounted so that they can rotate with respect to the fixed structure. The motor means for turning or braking the roll, depending on whether the paper is being rolled or unrolled, are furthermore connected to the heads.
With the solutions of the known art, it is virtually impossible to perfectly center the shaft with respect to the supports, and it is necessary to resort to couplings which must be performed with great care and precision so as to center the shaft. Furthermore, in order to mutually couple the head and the end of the shaft it is necessary to perform complicated operations, so as to provide, at the end of the shaft, a partially open seat in which said shaft end can be inserted.
Currently, with the above described solutions, there are considerable problems both for the machining of the shafts, which must be extremely accurate and precise, and for the application of the shafts to the supporting heads which, by rotating with respect to a fixed supporting structure, introduce further rotating masses whose perfect centering with respect to the rotation axis is often troublesome.